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FIRST AID KIT – IT’S A SHAME

I can only apologise to you and myself, for missing the boat entirely and only discovering today, the release of a brand new track by Swedish duo First Aid Kit. ‘It’s A Shame’ was unveiled late in the day, on the 28th of September (a week tomorrow) and snuck right by us. I can only imagine that with the various tragedies and atrocities going on all over the world and being constantly covered in the media, it’s hard to focus on new music, but when one of our absolute all time favourites has new music to give, we have to go back and take a look, late or not.

INSTANTLY, the first thoughts I had upon hearing this track was the influences of Bob Dylan on the music, which may or may not be coincidental, but considering the folk and country stylings of First Aid Kit you’d surely have to believe that it’s way more like that they’d pay homage to the pioneer, rather than just accidentally feature organ sections and piano parts reminiscent of Dylan’s earliest electric phase.

Vocally the track is phenomenal, as is expected now from the Soderberg sisters as they’ve been showcasing fantastic vocal skill and control since their debut EP back in 2008. They don’t disappoint here either. However, the lyrics and general content of the track doesn’t appear as poetic, as abstract and perhaps a little of the story telling, that alongside their style of playing really encases them within the country genre. A lot like their recent single releases from earlier on this year, mainly ‘You Are The Problem Here’ the country grit is there, the folk musicianship is there, but they’re heading more into the contemporary singer song writing remit and moving away slowly from their purist beginnings. Their last album ‘Stay Gold’ from 2014 began to add some edge, and promote country as being a lot cooler than probably perceived by the masses and to be honest it worked. They drew in a hell of a fan base, caught some great commercial radio play and came back with one huge authoritative bang. Despite all it’s success’ ‘It’s A Shame’ seems an iota limper than their previous single releases. However, with news of a new album on the way, their fourth overall and the first one in over three years, we’ll be keeping a much keener eye on First Aid Kit, as they still haven’t released a poor album and we don’t expect that to change. In fact, as one of the most talented acts out there today, we hope for their greatest yet.